It turns out that the fishscale vases (example attached) were not made by Webb, and not even made in England. One of these vases turned up with an RD number on it that showed that it was registered in 1885 by Wittman & Roth, an importer of foreign glass and china. There is evidence that they did design some of their pieces, so it is possible that they did the design (or maybe not). Some of their imports have been traced back to Bohemia. I have not found any information on whether they imported from other countries. I still know nothing about the mysterious GLF signature, except that it would not be a George L. Fereday from Webb since it is not a Webb piece.

I realise that the Webb attribution has been blown, but to follow up on the Fereday name. Jason Ellis does not mention a George at all in his book "Glassmakers of Stourbridge and Dudley 1612-2002". the only two Feredays are mentioned on page 474, note 53:

Oh dear. That had occured to me, but I thought, no Nigel, "Leave it!!!!". I still think it's a very good piece of work; just that a photograph has rendered a very unfortunate representation - well, to some of us reprobates

oh .... yes it does! :24: :24: :24: but then you know I love figural pieces And after all, if we were all after the same pieces of glass then the world would be more boring for it - a difference in taste is to be celebrated :kissy: I will be expecting no competition then when one comes up for auction :rah:m

which has a very similar feel, I don't know what the RD traces back to but it's got the mark of the retailer mentioned above; Whitman and Roth. The Seller attributed it to Webb and I had thought of this style as always attributed to webb but at heart I've been thinking it really looks like Harrach. My clear fishscale pieces have a slightly different pattern than the cameo ones though. the design is sunken in the colored pieces as opposed to raised in mine. Also the way the base is finished does look like the way I stereo-typically think of Webb cased. a giant polished pontil that takes up nearly the entire base. Whereas Harrach seems to be more restrained in their pontil polishing.

does anyone know of a way to track down this RD number? 39086? I am guessing it will trace to whitman and roth.